Monthly Archives: January 2006

Blog

What would you do if…

8 Comments

It’s the typical question that get’s asked of anyone who declares themselves a “pacifist.”

What would you do if someone was attacking your family (loved ones)?

It’s the magic card up someones sleeve to stump that said pacifist into agreeing that sometimes violence, and war, is okay and necessary. I’ll be honest this was a difficult question to handle when I first started thinking about pacifism. What made it difficult was the passage we talked about previously, “Love your enemies…” What suddenly happened was that now both the attacker and the victim are my loved ones. It’s like having to change the question to:

What would you do if your wife was attacking your father?
(or pick the two people closest to you)

Now I’m not so sure killing the attacker would be my pat answer. If I love that person I certainly wouldn’t want their death. I love the victim though as well and I don’t want them to die, so the situation is now far more complex then the original question presented.

For me, this question simply confirms to me that thinking as a pacifist, or rather, thinking about what to do with ‘killing’ not being one of the options.

So, What would you do if…

Blog

Relevant removes it’s incriminating Radiant Ad

4 Comments

Okay, so the title here is a little harsh, but you’ve got to wonder. I’m listening to the Radiant Podcast to say if they say anything about it. From what I can see they decided to remove the ad with “It’s Our Turn Now” across the top. I’d like to think it has something to do with the discussion that was started here regarding the sexist implications of that statement.
Radiant's new Ad
I emailed Cara and asked what she thought about my thoughts on it, but it doesn’t seem like she responded at all. It could be purely coincidence that the Ad has been changed, but that’s just a little suspicious. Oh well, I think it will remain a mystery.

UPDATE: Though I never got a direct response on the ad change, Cameron (Prez over at Relevant) did reply with some thoughtful comments on my Message Board post.

Blog

Love your enemies

8 Comments

It’s time to resurrect the “Thoughts on War” topic and address the passage that began my turn to pacifism.
I’d read it before, but not until the days after 9/11 did it hit me with such a radical challenge.

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.*

I was so challenged, and so struggled with what those words meant in our world and for us. I ran into the dilemma that no matter how I looked at it I couldn’t come to a conclusion that killing my enemy could be loving.

So, brother’s and sister’s in Christ who support war, please help me with some explanation of this.

Blog

Another Reason why I WON’T Shop at Abercrombie

5 Comments

First a confession: I once owned a hat from Abercrombie and Fitch. They share my initials: AF, and with a simple sewing tool the “AbeRcrobIe And fitcH” Became “A R I A H” and I was happy. My friend Zach told me the other day that that hat was a defining characteristic of me in high school.
It was also during those high school years that I saw Abercrombie go from “cool” status in my mind to “Wow, they are pornographic and setting terrible standards for my generation!” And from there it’s gone only downhill.

This quote from a recent interview of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, says pretty much everything:

Listen, do we go too far sometimes? Absolutely. But we push the envelope, and we try to be funny, and we try to stay authentic and relevant to our target customer. I really don’t care what anyone other than our target customer thinks.

This is his response to the many protest that Abercrombie has faced for it’s sexist and racist t-shirts.

I don’t want to spend anymore time listing reasons Abercrombie is bad. Want I would like is to figure out some way to convince the millions of “good” people out there that spending your money at a place like Abercrombie gives your support to their Racist and Sexist behaviors.

via AngryAsianMan.com

Blog

After Innocence Directed by Jessica Sanders

3 Comments

AFTER INNOCENCE

AFTER INNOCENCE tells the dramatic and compelling story of the exonerated – innocent men wrongfully imprisoned for decades and then released after DNA evidence proved their innocence. The film focuses on the gripping story of seven men and their emotional journey back into society and efforts to rebuild their lives. Included are a police officer, an army sergeant and a young father sent to prison and even death row for decades for crimes they did not commit.

This new film strikes me as an incredibly interesting and informative story that we should all hear.  We are part of a society that I’ll admit has a pretty fair justice system. There are many disturbing exceptions to this, but overall I think even I would have to agree it’s pretty fair.  I think it is precisely because of this that we should be so aware and concerned about injustice, mistakes, wrongdoings in it. 
I would like to encourage everyone to see this movie for two reasons. First, the premiere is not playing in Nashville so I won’t have a chance to see it myself (self interest, I know). Second, I believe that, at the very least, these men have earned the right to be heard by every person in the country.  For a couple hours and a few bucks this spring, go and listen to their story.

Blog

If I don’t write, you don’t read.

3 Comments

I took a brief look at my stats for Trying to Follow the past few days. It seems my assumption was right: If I don’t write, you don’t read.
Okay, you might read something somewhere else, but you certainly aren’t getting your daily dose of Fine thoughts from Ariah. I feel a sense of duty to write for you more. I’ll do my best to make that a reality.

At the same time I would encourage you to take a look at my “Links” post that come up each day. They are from my bookmarks at Del.icio.us and they give you a good idea of what I’m snooping around and doing each day. I’m going to start adding notes to each of them so you can have a better idea of what things are before you click on them. For now enjoy.

Blog

Some reasons why I can’t find the time.

1 Comment

I keep on having aspirations to post all sorts of long and thoughtful thoughts on this here blog, but the time keeps on slipping away. Here are a few of the things keeping me busy:

1. Work, and thoughts and research about work-related stuff.
2. Cutting up carrots, doing dishes, and cooking chicken.
3. Getting the oil changed.
4. Cleaning my desk.
5. Working on my taxes.
6. sleeping in.
7. going to bed before midnight.

There is time on the horizon though don’t you worry. And I have this feeling that when I do post again, you’ll be there. Now that is a comforting thought.

Blog

Antsy update, Tagging, and finding noteworthy

Leave a comment

I got antsy again and updated my blog layout. It looks mostly the same and I hope you enjoy that, but I had to update to the new K2 just cause I could.
I spent the last half hour updating the tags on my previous post, starting at number one and making it to number 61. I had to take a break there and I’ll do more another weekend. Hopefully it will make your browsing of the Tag Cloud below more enjoyable. At some point I’ll also try and condense the tags a bit also.

As I was doing the tagging I noticed a number of post I had written that had solicited a number of comments. Two series that got a lot of comments where: Consider Church and Thoughts on War. I’d recommend you read through some of those post and the comments because the comments are very insightful. Starting this week I’ll do my best to read through a couple of those post and comments and then try to respond to them. Let me know which ones your interested in.

I might change the layout of this page at some point, I hope my readers don’t mind, I’m sort of nutso like that.

Blog

My Notes from the Tipping Point

Leave a comment

Great Book, I’d recommend it (My mom recommended it to me).

The Tipping Point

POINTS:

If you take a paper and have to fold it over on it self 50 times, it would make a stack tall enough to reach to the sun. (most would guess the size of a phone book.). pg. 11

Six-degrees of Seperation was actually a study. Sent packets to folks in Nebraska and they where to send it to someone, who sent it to someone, with the goal of reaching a lawyer in Boston. (Most people would guess 100).
We mostly have close friends (based on proximity over similarity) who share similar activities (not necessarily attitudes ). pg. 35
In the 6 degrees experiment most came through three individuals, it points to a small number of people knowing a great many people.

Roger Horchow. Tracks down old elementary school friends. Writes EVERYONE a Birthday card. He’s got 1,600 names in a computer database. pg. 45

Prison experiment
People turned horrible. In just 6 days they called it off. Fascinatingly scary. pg. 154.

Experiments on cheating. Much cheating goes on. It’s not necessarily the bad kids or anything like that. Lot’s of different circumstances. (155-158).

Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards. pg. 197